TADEJ POGACAR WINS AGAIN ON BASTILLE DAY TO STRENGTHEN GRIP ON YELLOW
Two years after he was beaten by Jonas Vingegaard in a two-up sprint in Le Lioran, Tadej Pogacar returned to the ski resort in the Massif Central and turned the tables on his Danish rival.
Another devastating attack on the penultimate climb of Stage 10 saw Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) drop Vingagaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and the other GC pretenders before soaring past Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) ahead of the summit.
The Slovenian world champion extended his lead on the descent and on the last of six climbs before crossing the line to take the 24th Tour de France stage win of his career in style – honouring the yellow jersey on the French national holiday of Quatorze Juillet.
Watch: Peerless Pogacar CRUSHES field to take Stage 10 victory as Vingegaard trails in
Video credit: TNT Sports
Vingegaard could only take seventh place, coming home at the back of a chase group, to concede another 44 seconds to the four-time champion. Pogacar now leads the Dane by 3’36” before the halfway point of the 113th edition of the Tour.
Momentarily dropped on the final climb, Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) battled back to cross the line in second place ahead of French phenomenon Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM), who was the host nation’s best placed rider on Bastille Day.
Evenepoel rose to third place in the general classification after Pogacar’s team-mate Isaac del Toro was put into the red just prior to the Slovenian’s attack. The Mexican took eighth in Le Lioran, 1’31” down, and now finds himself in seventh place in the standings.
With six categorised climbs and 3,800 metres of altitude gain packed into 166km under the hot sun of central France, Stage 10 was a suitably engaging spectacle for the French fans lining the roads and celebrating their national holiday.
Once Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) extended his grip on the green jersey with maximum points in the early intermediate sprint, a fierce battle ensued to make it into the day’s breakaway – with a large group of 31 riders eventually going up the road.
One of many French riders to make the cut, Valentin Paret-Peintre (Soudal Quick-Step) looked to make some in-roads into the King of the Mountains competition by amassing points over some of the early peaks.
But UAE kept a tight lid on proceedings, and after the first three climbs, only Spain’s Javier Romo (Movistar) remained ahead having ridden clear of fellow escapee Harold Tejada of XDS Astana.
Ireland’s Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) led a spirited attempt to bridge over from the faltering breakaway alongside team-mate Sean Quinn, Louis Vervaeke (Soudal Quick-Step), Sergio Higuita (XDS Astana) and Rasmus Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech).
But the counter moves came to nothing, and once Romo was caught at the start of the Cat.1 Puy Mary, it was another EF rider – the former Olympic champion Carapaz – who stole a march over the thinning yellow jersey group.
Carapaz established a lead of one minute over the chasers as UAE burned their matches one by one, while Vingegaard looked increasingly isolated after both Sepp Kuss and Matteo Jorgenson cracked before the latter crashed on an early corner on the descent.
Pidcock puzzled by ‘s***’ on road that caused crash
Video credit: TNT Sports
Britain’s Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) also went down on the same corner but he was able to recover, and eventually rode into the top 10 at the expense of his former team-mate, the Colombian Egan Bernal (Netcompany INEOS).
After Tim Wellens, Brandon McNulty, Felix Grossschartner and Adam Yates had all peeled off for UAE, the scene looked set for another explosive Pogacar-Del Toro relay on the front.
But instead, Seixas called on his Decathlon team-mates Matthew Riccitello and Nicolas Prodhomme to set the tempo, while Vingegaard – perhaps sniffing blood – had Italy’s Davide Piganzoli going deep on the Col de Pertus.
This might have put Del Toro into difficulty, but not his mentor. And with just over one kilometre from the summit, Pogacar made his decisive attack – dropping his rivals like stone and making light work of closing Carapaz’s dwindling advantage. He swept past the veteran climber ahead of the summit and then never looked back, extending his lead as his rivals floundered behind.
Watch: Pogacar cracks Vingegaard and breezes past Carapaz – ‘Like watching two different sports!’
Video credit: TNT Sports
Evenepoel recovered from a huge wobble at the start of the final climb, the Col de Font de Cere, to rejoin the chase group that also included his Red Bull team-mate Florian Lipowitz, as well as Seixas and the Lidl-Trek duo of Juan Ayuso and Mattias Skjelmose.
All of the above beat Vingegaard in the final dash to the line, the Dane settling for seventh place ahead of Wednesday’s easier parcours.
Stage 11 from Vichy to Nevers on Wednesday is pan-flat save for a couple of short Cat.4 climbs.
With the intermediate sprint coming just 27km from the start of the 161km test – and a huge 70 points up for grabs at the finish – the focus will demonstrably shift from Pogacar and yellow to Pedersen and green for what should be a bunch sprint finale where Belgium’s Tim Merlier – who just finished inside the time cut on Tuesday – will be favourite to complete a hat-trick of wins.
Three wins is what Pogacar already has in his jersey pocket – with five mountain stages and the individual time trial still left to come. All of a sudden, Mark Cavendish’s record of 35 stage wins looks rather precarious.